This Payments Company Is Winning Big After SVB Collapse

livemint.com:

Startups and other tech companies fled Silicon Valley Bank during its final days, and many put their money in too-big-to-fail institutions such as JPMorgan Chase. Some also opted to store at least some of their money at Brex, a payments company better known for issuing corporate credit cards. Brex now oversees close to $7 billion in customer money, up from $4 billion before SVB’s failure.

More than 80% of the 4,000 accounts Brex opened since SVB started teetering in early March are still active. SVB’s failure left a void in the tech ecosystem for basic banking and borrowing that a number of players are angling to fill. First Citizens Bancshares acquired SVB’s remains, hoping to leverage SVB’s established relationships with tech businesses.

Banks including HSBC and Stifel have hired senior SVB bankers with the same goal in mind. Brex, for its part, has been targeting SVB’s roster of startups. After SVB was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Brex unsuccessfully bid $70 million to buy deposits and credit-card balances tied to SVB’s early-stage and growth-stage customers.

Brex also recently hired Jason Mok, a 16-year SVB veteran, to help manage its relationships with startup clients. When the run on SVB started on the morning of Thursday, March 9, Brex had nearly $300 million of its corporate cash in SVB accounts. In an internal Slack channel called the Conclave-of-Cash, Brex’s finance team monitored and debated SVB’s financial health.